Anyone recommend new riding boots? I've got some decent wolverines, but want to try something new, maybe a lace up. Has to have a rubber sole, has to be leather, and has to be at least 5-6" tall. Vastly prefer steel toe.

Obviously I want comfortable, Don't really give a shiat about looks. Not particularly interested in 'riding boots', I typically just wear steel toe work boots.

Also, anyone here ever wrapped your headers/exhaust? I was thinking of having it done, for the black-black look, as opposed to the chrome on the Bonneville now, which is already blueing up (they're notorious for going blue and then starting to disintegrate).

/2013 Bonneville, few thousand miles on it//First and only new vehicle I've ever bought!///Rides like a dream

Also, anyone here ever wrapped your headers/exhaust? I was thinking of having it done, for the black-black look, as opposed to the chrome on the Bonneville now, which is already blueing up (they're notorious for going blue and then starting to disintegrate).

How's your jetting/mixture? If the engine is running lean, as stock bikes tend to do for emissions, the headers will get hotter and turn blue more quickly. Or is it just something that that model does? (GIS seems to point toward the latter)

Header wraps are fine, but IMO look best on bikes that are a little rough around the edges, like a track bike or a cafe. On your Bonnie I think wraps might look a little odd with the chrome mufflers. If you did an aftermarket exhaust in all black it would look good.

Anyone recommend new riding boots? I've got some decent wolverines, but want to try something new, maybe a lace up. Has to have a rubber sole, has to be leather, and has to be at least 5-6" tall. Vastly prefer steel toe.

Obviously I want comfortable, Don't really give a shiat about looks. Not particularly interested in 'riding boots', I typically just wear steel toe work boots.

Also, anyone here ever wrapped your headers/exhaust? I was thinking of having it done, for the black-black look, as opposed to the chrome on the Bonneville now, which is already blueing up (they're notorious for going blue and then starting to disintegrate).

/2013 Bonneville, few thousand miles on it//First and only new vehicle I've ever bought!///Rides like a dream

I wrapped the headers on my last bike with black wrap. After a couple of months it'd be faded to grey and need re-wrapped if you wanted them to stay black. But I also ride a fair bit and am not afraid of rain, plus the front pipe got hit with everything off the tire. Also be prepared for the pipes under the wrap to look bad when you take it off. Mine didn't seem to rust any quicker with the wrap, but it did seem to make them look bad. But, they were just plain stainless and not polished to begin with.

As to boots I like Redwings. But to me no matter the brand it's always been worth the price to go to a good shoe store and take the time to get fitted and figure out the best option. The shoes may be more expensive that way but I've never been disappointed that way compared to nearly always disappointed with cheaper boots.

Spotted: one Triumph and one Ducati. The rest could be generic Japanese cruiser-alikes, which actually aren't all that bad and are a lot less over-priced than the current line of Harley Davidsons who are priced exclusively for retiring baby boomers.

Anyone recommend new riding boots? I've got some decent wolverines, but want to try something new, maybe a lace up. Has to have a rubber sole, has to be leather, and has to be at least 5-6" tall. Vastly prefer steel toe.

Obviously I want comfortable, Don't really give a shiat about looks. Not particularly interested in 'riding boots', I typically just wear steel toe work boots.

Also, anyone here ever wrapped your headers/exhaust? I was thinking of having it done, for the black-black look, as opposed to the chrome on the Bonneville now, which is already blueing up (they're notorious for going blue and then starting to disintegrate).

/2013 Bonneville, few thousand miles on it//First and only new vehicle I've ever bought!///Rides like a dream

The triumph 2200 is a great scoot, but I prefer my supercharged (LaMonster) honda valkyrie over any of them 10.2 quarter mile at 800 lbs of bike and 160 lbs of driver (not me I am 215 and don't have the guts to go that fast)

So Libya has a bunch of fat, middle aged men that are trying really hard to act tough when they're not working their white collar jobs? And they need to wake up everyone in the middle of the night by showing how much noise their vehicle can make because they're not getting enough attention?

marius2:So LibyaArizona has a bunch of fat, middle aged men that are trying really hard to act tough when they're not working their white collar jobs? And they need to wake up everyone in the middle of the night by showing how much noise their vehicle can make because they're not getting enough attention?

AbiNormal:I see a lot of non-riders running off at the mouth in this thread. Like Englebert Slaptyback said It's not what you ride, it's that you ride. Personally I like all bikes but prefer Harley-Davidson.

[img.fark.net image 850x1133]

Mostly because Harley has the massive cult following of people who don't ride but buy the bikes, want the lifestyle, etc. You don't see a lot of that on people riding 93 Honda Nighthawks. It's not even about pretentiousness or anything inflated, they're just obnoxious.

NBSV:I wrapped the headers on my last bike with black wrap. After a couple of months it'd be faded to grey and need re-wrapped if you wanted them to stay black. But I also ride a fair bit and am not afraid of rain, plus the front pipe got hit with everything off the tire. Also be prepared for the pipes under the wrap to look bad when you take it off. Mine didn't seem to rust any quicker with the wrap, but it did seem to make them look bad. But, they were just plain stainless and not polished to begin with.

Pretty much what I do as well, but my daily round trip is like 10 miles (hey, I moved close to work, I hate commutes). I wouldn't mind the unwrap being gnarly, but having to rewrap is a nonstart for me, I don't do stuff and then have to turn around and redo it in 6 months if I don't have to.

Englebert Slaptyback:How's your jetting/mixture? If the engine is running lean, as stock bikes tend to do for emissions, the headers will get hotter and turn blue more quickly. Or is it just something that that model does? (GIS seems to point toward the latter)

It's stock, so I'm not sure. But the design of the bike/headers basically predisposes them to blue. To eek out emissions Triumph does something that I can't quite remember correctly, which involves feeding a little fuel/spark back into the exhaust and recombusting any non-combusted gas/fuel, which makes the immediate exit into the headers hot-hot-hot. In the old carb models you could remove it, but I have a fuel injected model, so can't work around that.

The blues don't really bother me, I just thought it would look kinda cool wrapped. Not really that interested in picking up an aftermarket exhaust, either. Do they make any that are quiet? I don't do loud pipes. There's no correlation between decibel level and safety, but there is a strong studied link between noise fatigue and hearing damage. So quieter the better.

I've thought about it. Had a friend who used to track bike, and basically all his PPE saved his life/body (he was in a halo for 6+ months kind of bad). My riding is basically daily driver kind of stuff, up and down the back roads. I wear my jacket and helmet and gloves, but mostly forgo pants and assume that a pair of good leather boots will be enough for most of my risk scenarios.

I like being able to walk around after getting wherever I'm going (I use a bike as a car replacement, not as a 'drive 400 miles in one day for the fun of it' thing). Are those boots livable for actually walking in? Like if I wanted to take the bike 3 miles down to the atrium, and then walk through the 2 mile trail looking at flowers, would I want to farking shoot myself half way through, or would it be pleasant?

marius2:So Libya has a bunch of fat, middle aged men that are trying really hard to act tough when they're not working their white collar jobs? And they need to wake up everyone in the middle of the night by showing how much noise their vehicle can make because they're not getting enough attention?

AbiNormal:I see a lot of non-riders running off at the mouth in this thread. Like Englebert Slaptyback said It's not what you ride, it's that you ride. Personally I like all bikes but prefer Harley-Davidson.